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share prices fell dramatcically as investors tried to sell increasing numbers of shares . People rushed to sell , believing that
shares would become worthless if they held onto them
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this flood of shares onto the market pushed
down their value rapidly . the more shares that were sold , the cheaper they became and therefor the greater the loss to those who sold them
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on ...... ..... , october 24th ...... , share prices fell faster than any other time e.g. general electric fell ....... points , and radio fell ..... points
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what happened to try and stop the crisis , and did it work
6 of New York's richest bankers agreed to spend $40 million each buying shares . they hoped that this would encourage people to buy shares rather than sell shares . This worked for a short time , and share prices steadied , but then the panic set in again and prices fell further
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banks began to
demand repayment from stockbrokers who had borrowed from them
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in turn the brokers had to demand
money from customers who had bought shares for them on the margin
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the customers could only pay back the brokers by selling mores shares . on october the 29th there was a mad
rush to sell shares at amost any price . over 16 million shares were sold in that one day . the average price of shares fell by 40 points and shareholders lost a total of $8,000 million . share prices contunied to fall until they reached rock bottom in November 1929
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what was the immediate cause of the great depression which was though to last through the 1930's
the wall street crash
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rich investors lost
a great deal of money
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poor investors who had borrowed on the margin
couldnt repay their loans and therefor became bankrupt
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banks could
not cover their losses and began to collapse
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as hundreds , tens of thousands , of banks failed it became
impossible to borrow money
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banks also demanded
repayment of buisness loans in order to avoid becoming bankrupt , all too often however , this resulted in the bank and the local buisness collapsing . all of this rippled outwards in ever widening circles of bankrupticies , job lay offs and reduced demands for goods
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these factors began to directly affect the general public . Both agricultural and industrial production fell so
unemployment rose . to make things worse , wages across the country fell rapidly and people became more and more prepared to work for less
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this led to many poor families facing
starvation and being evicted from their homes
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people began to blame ..... .... for the crash . a downward spiral had developed which seemed impossible to stop
president hoover
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